The Best Free Media Players On All Platforms

I recommend using VLC to play audio and video on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

If you prefer a dedicated audio player, I recommend Foobar2000 on Mac and Windows, and Audacious on Linux. See this article for more details.

Here are some details on those apps:

VLC Media Player (Video and Audio)

Platform support: Windows, Mac and Linux, iOS, Apple TV, Android, and Windows Phone.

VLC is a cross-platform, open-source, and configurable media player.

It also plays DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

The is a mobile version available for iOS and Android.

Foobar2000 (Audio Player)

Platform Support: Windows and Mac

Foobar2000 is a basic freeware audio player that supports many formats and supports gapless playback

Main features:

• Supported audio formats: MP3, MP4, AAC, CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND and more with additional components.
• Gapless playback.
• Easily customizable user interface layout.
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component.
• Full ReplayGain support.
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.